right clicking on dock icons often causes them to 'hang' or 'freeze' before I can do anything with them. (simply holding the click key on a dock icon works great, though)

changing desktop background: takes long time to load all wallpapers I've saved.

iTunes has slowed down mainly when accessing the media (150+ gigs) located on an external HDD (Newertech Ministack).

and just a general slower performance.

I understand that SL has been reported to run slower than it's predecessor but these 'hangs' and wait times get annoying. IS THIS AN INSUFFICIENT RAM ISSUE or SHOULD I CONSIDER DOING A COMPLETE REINSTALL OF LEOPARD AND SNOW LEOPARD? My recollection was that installing SL took an awful lot of time...too long and my Mini's HDD doesn't have all that much on it. OSX, apps, and files are only eating up 20gb of a 120gb drive.

Any advice? If I decide to let the Apple Store do a clean reinstall for me will they charge me for it given the issues I'm experiencing? (I do have Apple Care).

1) I do not know about apple care and how it works, but I am sure someone here will pipe in and answer that.

2) Microsoft has a W7 Upgrade Advisor that evaluates your system, to step up to W7, but unfortunately I think that program will only work on a PC not a mac.

3) I have the same year model mac as you but a 2.0 ghz. I have upgrade my RAM to 4GB (3 usable) it runs great. So more RAM does help.

4) I also upgraded my hard drive to a 7200/16mb with a 320 GB capacity (my specs are below in my signature). I think this is an upgrade that is really necessary to get an older mac that performs excellent in W7.

I am assuming you have the c2d in yours and that it has an Intel chip. I am not sure when min made the switch to c2d that year or the year before.

After my new HD and RAM upgrades, my mini runs really excellent. SL is lightening fast. IMHO. Never hangs, no spinning pinwheel of death, plays videos great (even though it has that old 950 graphic card). All my apps work. etc.

And in Windows 7, I think my mini runs better that most newer PC's I have used.

-With all that said, I would not do a W7 install unless you at least upgrade your RAM. 1 GB is not going to cut it. And if you can, upgrade the HD to a 7200

I'd definitely would address the RAM sooner rather than later, even if I weren't going to install W7. 1gig is the bare minimum for SL, and IMHO, there's no such thing as too much ram. You should see a marked improvement. My mom's new HP Pavilion runs W7 with 4 gigs of RAM, and I think it's wanting more because, while it runs nicely, it doesn't seem as snappy as my Mini running SL._________________"You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in." - Arlo Guthrie
Mac Mini 2009 - 500GB, 5400RPM HDD - 4gig RAM
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